Despite coming on in leaps and bounds, menopause awareness still has a long way to go. I don’t mean in terms of knowledge of symptoms, but more proactively supporting women in the workplace and outside of it.
Symptoms show up at the most inconvenient times, often mid meeting, or mid supermarket trip, waking up at 3am the day of the presentation. Yet there is still a clear message that being seen to struggle implies being less capable.
So we mask, but masking is even more exhausting than the symptoms we are trying to hide. Many career women are dealing with brain fog, disrupted sleep, hot flushes and anxiety all while trying to hold down a 5 or 6 figure job. And the message from the top is STILL, cope or be circumvented.
Women who have had to work hard to prove their worth alongside male counterparts are facing their biggest challenge yet. How to maintain the same level of competence while dealing with tough symptoms that threaten to expose a crack in their armour.
Displaying even the slightest wobble, when you hit the 45-55 age bracket as a woman, risks being automatically lumped into the menopause club, destined to be passed over for promotion or more prominent tasks for reasons of flakiness and perceived potential inability to cope with the workload.
Masking has become a real thing. Women are using up all their energy to hide what they are dealing with, leaving them totally depleted and more isolated than ever. Despite the huge increase in workplace awareness and menopause themed company policies, there is still a fear that you are the only one not coping.
The support needs to go further. The menopause needs to be normalized. Not recognized in some big dramatic, ego fuelled action but accepted as the norm and even absorbed and supported as matter of factly as gender equality.
Women should be comfortable in acknowledging openly that they need a window to be opened during a hot flush or that they need a moment while the brain fog episode passes. It should be the most natural thing to expect support.
Coping well is not coping silently.
Masking isn’t free. The women keeping it together at work are falling apart when they get home.
At home, symptoms get minimized too due to lack of time, energy or voice to be heard, above the chaos of family life.
There is of course a line to be drawn between vulnerability and oversharing. Being honest doesn’t mean exposing every gritty detail to the world but feeling safe enough to share with a trusted colleague that a minute is needed to refocus the brain. This is what needs to be recognized.
The menopause endorsing celebrities are doing an excellent job in highlighting what women are dealing with. But, they are thought of as ‘brave’ for exposing their personal battles so readily. Bravery is a word we assign to doing something risky or unusual. Every celebrity menopause story gets framed as an exception to the rule, rather than standard and what half the population is going through.
The more we applaud the telling, the more we signal that it isn’t normal to say it out loud. Highlighted by a gap between celebrity and normal life. The celebrity shares and the supportive audience rally round. A woman in her Tuesday team meeting doesn’t feel quite the same reassurance, the same permission.
Normalizing the menopause means making it more unremarkable in the places where the women dealing with it are remarkable in how they are showing up every day, at work, at the doctors or round the kitchen table.
So many women in midlife are doing one of the most exhausting things their job demands of them : pretending nothing is happening. Struggling and being competent can be both true at once. The more of us who speak up and say so, the less anyone has to hide.
Final words
Menopause friendly measures are being talked about and implemented. Yet still, the unconscious bias keeps women quiet. For many women, the fear is real that mentioning symptoms will ostracise them in the workplace. Seen as less capable, past it or too emotional. It is still the elephant in the meeting room. The silent struggle and inner conflict to adapt goes on.
Menopause affects half the population, support doesn’t correlate. In order for menopause acceptance to become second nature, the world needs to think about the how, not just the why. Understanding and education of what it means to deal with the symptoms while consistently delivering, needs to be stepped up.
It’s time to set the mask down and let women be seen exactly as they are. It’s time to recognize the remarkability in the face of the brave.
PS “Courage isn’t having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don’t have the strength” Napoleon Bonaparte. Speak out from behind your mask contact Positive-Soul.